The Challenge (Single Dad Romance) by Penelope Ward-review tour
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ABOUT THE BOOK: Release Date August 30, 2026
Nothing says welcome home like accidentally moving in with your first heartbreak…and his little girl. Coming back to my small Wyoming hometown was supposed to be temporary. I only planned to stay long enough to help my ailing mother and sort through the mess of my family’s old belongings.
Instead, I somehow ended up living in Evan Ricci’s house. The single dad now owned a bunch of properties and one of them was the place I’d rented. He’d taken it off the market and moved in before I got there. I just never got the memo. Unfortunately, there was no other place in town available, so Evan let me stay.
Evan—the guy my parents took in years ago after his mother died. The same Evan who used to dare me into ridiculous challenges that somehow always made me stronger—a game we’d dubbed The Challenge. The same guy who ultimately rejected me before I left for college after I’d finally garnered the courage to shoot my shot.
Now Evan was a rugged single dad with an eight-year-old daughter, a cocky attitude, and a dangerous ability to make me forget every reason I should still hate him. Sharing a house with him should’ve been unbearable. Instead, it felt dangerously familiar, nearly making me forget that I had a life and a job to get back to in Chicago. I realized the biggest challenge wasn’t surviving living with Evan Ricci.
It was not falling in love with him all over again.
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REVIEW:THE CHALLENGE by Penelope Ward is a stand alone, contemporary, adult, erotic, romance story line focusing on thirty-five year old, single father and engineer Evan Ricci, and thirty year old, project manager Chloe Cavanaugh.
Told from dual first person perspectives (Chloe and Evan) THE CHALLENGE follows Chloe Cavanaugh on her return to Dry River, Wyoming in the wake of her mother’s deteriorating health. Renting a house from a local realtor, Chloe will discover the owner is the man who broke her heart years before. Forced to live together with Evan Ricci and his eight year old daughter Effie was never in the cards but the tourist season left Chloe struggling to find a place to live, and Evan’s offer would mean more heart break when she would have to leave. Working from home, visiting her ailing mother, and struggling with memories of what was and what will never be, Chloe finds herself, once again, falling for the man who continues to struggle with the past.
The world building focuses on reconnection and revelations, memories and heart break, extended family and local townsfolk. From Chicago to Dry River, friendships and loneliness, Chloe must come to terms with the loss of family, and the need to move forward.
The relationship between Evan and Chloe is one of second chances, of a sort. Evan and Chloe were best friends, and for a time Evan lived with the Cavanaugh family but Evan rejected the advances of a much younger Chloe, leaving our heroine heart broken and determined to move on. The $ex scenes are intimate and passionate without the use of over the top, sexually graphic language and text.
The secondary and supporting characters are charismatic and energetic. We are introduced to Evan’s eight year old daughter Effie, and her mother Katerina; Evan’s uncle Drew and Maura, Chloe’s sister Fawn, their ailing mother Judy, and estranged father Phil.
THE CHALLENGE is a story of family and friendships, heart break and forgiveness, acceptance and love. The character driven premise is edgy and compelling ; the characters are animated, sassy and stubborn; the romance is seductive and spicy.
Copy supplied for review
Reviewed by Sandy
Penelope Ward is a New York Times, USA Today and Wall Street Journal Bestselling author. She grew up in Boston with five older brothers and spent most of her twenties as a television news anchor, before switching to a more family-friendly career. She is the proud mother of a beautiful 11-year-old girl with autism and a 9-year-old boy. Penelope and her family reside in Rhode Island.
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